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“Level.” I hold Ian’s steady eyes. He’s right, I need to keep my head. It’s the only way I’m going to find her, and Iamgoing to fucking find her.
If a single hair on her head is harmed, woman or not, I’m going to kill the bitch who took her.
My voice comes out surprisingly steady. “I need the video from the lobby.”
Getting the video clip is no easy task. It takes almost an hour before I have the clip in my email, open on my laptop. In that hour, I must threaten half the lives of the staff that work in my building as I pace the floor, feeling helpless. I hate feeling helpless.
Knowing Wrenlee is out there, the clock ticking away minute after minute, until those minutes turn to hours, is painful. I don’t know where she is or who the fuck she’s with.
I don’t know if she’s hurting. If she’s suffering. Being tortured—fuck.
I’ve got one foot over the thread, and I can feel the bony claws of insanity ripping at my ankle, trying topull me over into the inescapable deep. I won’t go. Unless I lose her forever, I won’t go.
The video buffers. It has the fucking audacity to buffer. I want to throw the laptop. I want to rage.
I keep a level head, gritting my teeth as I wait.
It stutters, begins to play, and buffers again.
My teeth are gonna be dust after this shit.
My phone rings. My heart skips before resuming its beat with violence. When I see my dad’s name on the screen instead of Wrenlee’s ‘Kitten’ moniker, the weight of crushed hope feels like heaven is falling.
I can hardly think.Why can’t I think?
“Dad,” I answer.
His voice is grave. “Kane texted me, son. You need us. We’re boarding now, but I’ve contacted my sources. Everyone is on this. Everyone, son.”
“Thanks.”
He must hear the unsettled rattle, because he reminds me, “Breathe. Think.”
The video begins to play. The blood drains from my face as recognition for the woman next tomy womanbecomes clear. “Fuck, no.”
“What?” Dad and Ian say at the same time.
“The woman who took her—she’s Alyssa’s sister.”
The line is silent. I think I hear Dad tapping his screen. He’s bringing his contacts in on this conversation. But that’s the moment it hits me.
The memory of it is fuzzy. It’d been only a day ortwo after Wrenlee’s poisoning. She’d been sleeping off the effects, and I’d already been a mess, in love with the woman. Mom and Dad had tried to come then, we’d fought over it.
Dad had warned me to keep her safe. If I loved her, leave all reservations—all sense of right and wrong at the door—to keep her safe. He’d said that men like us, men in possession of money and power, with family names such as ours, with money as old as ours, put targets on the backs of those we love. He’d urged me to ensure that she was safe. He’d broached the subject of a bodyguard, but Wrenlee had a hard enough time allowing me to pay for her clothes, never mind a bodyguard, and I knew hiring one in secret was crossing well over the line of privacy infringement.
But I’d sat in the chair in her bedroom, listening to the quiet puffs of her breathing. I’d already drained the glass of whiskey sitting beside me, but even then, I’d known what I was doing was crossing a line.
I validated that by telling myself I wouldn’t use it for anything but emergency, and I hadn’t. I hadn’t used it, so I’d forgotten about it.
My hands begin to fly over the keyboard, my vision suddenly sharp as I drop the phone, hearing Dad’s voice shouting at me in the distance. I miss everything he says as I pull up the encrypted app, and the single red winking dot that moves slowly over the map.
“I’ve got her.”
I hit ‘link to device’, knowing it’s on my phone now as I lift it to my ear and tell Dad, “I found her.”
“How.”
“Tracking.”
